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Apr 02, 2021RebelBelle13 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I really think this series should be read as a whole- not as individual sections. They go together so well and so naturally that when I began this one, it was as if I had just finished and placed down Obelisk Gate. I get the feeling that the reader isn't supposed to like Essun very much. I don't begrudge her for the way she acts and reasons- her life has been hard and ridiculously sad- but her personality leaves much to be desired. Nassun, her daughter, is in some ways exactly like Essun, but in all the ways that matter, isn't like her mother at all. Nassun's journey feels to be driven more by love, and Essun's more of duty and closure. There's a third perspective here, that of Houwa's- a stone-eater. This is where the story lacks for me. We are dumped into the story of how the Moon was lost, and what happened to start the Seasons all those thousands of years ago. That in itself is interesting. I take issue with the way it is told. It was so confusing and convoluted that I really only ended up getting half of the picture, and I only determined who everyone was and what was happening halfway through Houwa's telling. I understand he's an unreliable narrator, but I felt like I was unraveling the secrets of the universe thread by slow thread and it was beyond frustrating. I think i was just expecting more. More explanation of the past, of the seasons, of the magic, of the world, more of Nassun and Essun together, more epilogue- just MORE. What is here is beautifully written and vastly different than what I've read before, so there's that. This whole series feels like something that begs to be read more than once, which is a detriment to someone like me who rarely rereads anything. As it stands, for a single read-through, The Stone Sky feels like a 3.5.